Disease X Could Trigger Deadly Global Epidemic: WHO

The World Health Organization (WHO) has added Disease X to a list of viruses that could cause a future deadly global pandemic.

WHO has called for urgent measures to accelerate research and development to tackle it.

The mystery disease was listed in the 2018 annual review of R&D Blueprint, a list developed by the WHO to identify, prioritize and accelerate research and development for diseases that lack efficacious drugs and/or vaccines, and pose a public health risk.

“Disease X” represents the knowledge that a serious international epidemic could be caused by a pathogen currently unknown to cause human disease,” WHO said in a statement.

The goal is to be prepared as much as possible for an unknown “Disease X”, it added.

Outside the 2018 Blueprint, the WHO also mentioned dengue, yellow fever, HIV/AIDs, tuberculosis, malaria, influenza causing severe human disease, smallpox, cholera, leishmaniasis, West Nile Virus and plague, saying further research and development is needed to tackle these diseases.